| Patrick J. Michaels | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 15, 1950 |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | A.B. and S.M in biological sciences and plant ecology PhD (1979) in ecological climatology |
| Alma mater | University of Chicago University of Wisconsin–Madison |
| Occupation | Climatologist |
| Organization | Senior fellow at George Mason University; senior fellow at the Cato Institute |
| Known for | Work on global warming |
| Website | |
| Patrick J. Michaels, Cato Institute | |
Patrick J. ("Pat") Michaels (born February 15, 1950) is an American climatologist. Michaels is a senior research fellow for Research and Economic Development at George Mason University, and a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute. Until 2007 he was research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, where he had worked from 1980.[1]
A self-described skeptic on the issue of global warming, he is a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists. He has written a number of books and papers on climate change, including Sound and Fury: The Science and Politics of Global Warming (1992), The Satanic Gases (2000), and Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media (2004) and is the co-author of Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don't Want You to Know (2009).[1]
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Michaels has an A.B. and S.M. in biological sciences and plant ecology from the University of Chicago, and in 1979 obtained his Ph.D. in ecological climatology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Michaels has said that he does not contest the basic scientific principles behind greenhouse warming and acknowledges that the global mean temperature has increased in recent decades. He is one of the most widely quoted global warming skeptics[2] and has described himself as a skeptic.[3] He contends that the changes will be minor, not catastrophic, and may even be beneficial.[4]
He has written extensive editorials on this topic for the mass media, and for think tanks and their publications such as Regulation.[4]
[S]cientists know quite precisely how much the planet will warm in the foreseeable future, a modest three-quarters of a degree (C) [in 50 years]
All this has to do with basic physics, which isn't real hard to understand. It has been known since 1872 that as we emit more and more carbon dioxide into our atmosphere, each increment results in less and less warming. In other words, the first changes produce the most warming, and subsequent ones produce a bit less, and so on. But we also assume carbon dioxide continues to go into the atmosphere at an ever-increasing rate. In other words, the increase from year-to-year isn't constant, but itself is increasing. The effect of increasing the rate of carbon dioxide emissions, coupled with the fact that more and more carbon dioxide produces less and less warming compels our climate projections for the future warming to be pretty much a straight line. Translation: Once human beings start to warm the climate, they do so at a constant rate.[5]
Michaels asks:
Why is the news on global warming always bad? Perhaps because there's little incentive to look at things the other way. If you do, you're liable to be pilloried by your colleagues. If global warming isn't such a threat, who needs all that funding?[6]
Office of Science and Technology Policy director, John Holdren,[7] told the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, "Michaels is another of the handful of U.S. climate-change contrarians … He has published little if anything of distinction in the professional literature, being noted rather for his shrill op-ed pieces and indiscriminate denunciations of virtually every finding of mainstream climate science."[8] Michaels responded in a Washington Examiner Op-Ed, saying that the IPCC had subverted the peer review process, and adding the IPCC had "left out plenty of peer-reviewed science that it found inconveniently disagreeable."[9]
Climate scientist Tom Wigley,[10] a lead author of parts of the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has stated that "Michaels' statements on the subject of computer models are a catalog of misrepresentation and misinterpretation … Many of the supposedly factual statements made in Michaels' testimony are either inaccurate or are seriously misleading."[11]
Michaels received praise for his book, "Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don't Want You to Know" from University of Alabama-Huntsville Principal Research Scientist Roy Spencer, who wrote, "Michaels and [Co-Author Robert] Balling have provided a treasure trove of the latest global warming science."[12] Will Happer, Professor of Physics and Former Chairman of the University Research Board at Princeton University, also praised the book and wrote it "...provides important and honest information about climate change that is hard to find elsewhere."[13]
On January 25, 2011, Rep. Henry Waxman sent a letter to Rep. Fred Upton seeking to call in Michaels for questioning about his science and funding. In the letter, Waxman wrote that Pat Michaels testified before the Energy and Commerce Committee in February 2009 "that widely accepted scientific data had 'overestimated' global warming and that regulation enacted in response to that data could have 'a very counterproductive effect.' Among the scientists who testified before this Committee on the issue of climate change in the last Congress, Pat Michaels was the only one to dismiss the need to act on climate change ... Dr. Michaels may have provided misleading information about the sources of his funding and his ties to industries opposed to regulation of emissions responsible for climate change."[14]
On July 27, 2006 ABC News reported that a Colorado energy cooperative, the Intermountain Rural Electric Association, had given Michaels $100,000.[15] An Associated Press report said that the donations had been made after Michaels had "told Western business leaders ... that he was running out of money for his analyses of other scientists' global warming research" and noted that the cooperative had a vested interest in opposing mandatory carbon dioxide caps, a situation that raised conflict of interest concerns.[16]
According to Fred Pearce, fossil fuel companies have helped fund Michaels' projects, including his World Climate Report, published every year since 1994, and his "advocacy science consulting firm", New Hope Environmental Services.[17]
Michaels is the author of several books including: Sound and Fury: The Science and Politics of Global Warming (1992), Satanic Gases (2002; as coauthor), Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians and the Media (2004), published by the Cato Institute, and Shattered Consensus: The True State of Global Warming (2005; as editor and coauthor).
His writing has been published in major scientific journals, including Climate Research, Climatic Change, Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of Climate, Nature, and Science, as well as in popular serials such as the Washington Post, Washington Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Houston Chronicle, and Journal of Commerce.[1] He was an author of the climate "paper of the year" awarded by the Association of American Geographers in 2004.[1]